The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and a method, an information management apparatus and a method, a recording medium, and a program. More particularly the present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and a method, an information management apparatus and a method, a recording medium, and a program that permit efficient use of hardware resources and distribute contents with ease.
In recent years, various broadband environments are being established. Therefore, the supply of service contents such as English school lessons and banking operations and the distribution of video data, music data, and other contents have been initiated vigorously.
A server providing a contents distribution service reads contents in compliance with requests from individual clients, and supplies the read contents to the clients. The clients can thus store the contents or perform, for example, a streaming reproduction.
However, in a central server type (concentrated) distribution service in which a plurality of clients access a single server to perform, for example, a contents streaming reproduction, it is difficult for the server to achieve distribution in compliance with all requests while maintaining contents quality if a contents distribution is simultaneously requested by a large number of clients.
More specifically, if a contents distribution is requested simultaneously by many clients, it is difficult to acquire transmission paths (transmission bands) between the server and clients. In addition, the processing load imposed on the server increases. As a result, the server cannot readily accomplish distribution in compliance with all requests.
The use of a high-performance server or a decentralized distribution server including a plurality of computers is proposed in order to handle simultaneous access from many clients. However, if such a large-scale distribution server is constructed, its management cost is very high and it is difficult to earn such a high cost. In general, a large number of clients gain access during a specific period of time such as at night on weekends. However, if the server is constructed so as to handle the access (maximum load) during such a period of time, the server is not fully used during daytime on weekdays or other period of time during which access is infrequently gained. It means that the resulting efficiency is low because the hardware resources are wasted.